Kicking off the season with a four-game win streak, the girls’ soccer team at Paulding County High School did not win a game since then and is now “playing for pride.”

“We started strong but over the past few weeks we hit a tough stretch. We’ve had injuries and a tougher schedule. We’re in the meat of the schedule now,” said head coach Matt Putnam.

There have been several injuries on the team which have put players out for weeks, with one player receiving a head injuryand another a concussion.

Despite the losses and injuries, Putnam said the team is doing better than they were at this point in the season last year. They finished 2012 with a 4-13 record.

Putnam currently has nine players which he listed as his key players. Four of these players are his captains —senior Jordan Ketcham and juniors Dominique Dudzinski, Alyssa Strobel and Madi Tolman.

“As captains they play a big part on the team in providing leadership,” said Putnam.

The other five are the leading scorers for the team. Rachel Gross leads the team with six goals, Carly Merritt has five goals, Haven Depner has four, Kayla Davis has three and Kaylee Gardner has two goals.

With a 4-5-1 record before playing East Paulding on March 29, Putnam said it is hard to tell how the game will go as it is all dependent on the energy of his girls at the start of the game.

“It depends on what energy we come out with; how strong we start. East is always a strong team,” Putnam said.

Being mathematically eliminated from the postseason, Putnam said his team is simply playing for pride right now and that can make it difficult to finish out the season strong.

“It’s not quite as easy to stay motivated when the main goal is unreachable. You have to resort to lesser goals,” Putnam said.

Even though this season did not go as well as the team might have liked, Putnam said he is optimistic for the future teams as the team finally beat an in-county rival — Hiram — and there are several eight-graders currently on the JV team who are “choice players.”

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